Has the system been running fine previously?
Changed anything recently if so?

oh..and exactly at what point does it lock up?
Hard lock or soft lock?

Try booting without the quite and splash options (verbose output) and what is the last thing it tries to load)

(just in case you don't know how to disable splash and quiet options in grub)

1. When the grub menu comes up (the boot menu at the very beginning after the BIOS that is up for 3 seconds) hit Escape
2. Hit the E key to temporarily edit the current menu item
3. Hit the down arrow once (should be the line with quiet and splash on the end)
4. Hit the E key to edit that line
5. Delete quiet and splash
6. Hit Enter
7. Hit the B key to boot with the changes you made

from Live CD-- at first boot screen which gives you coices to boot (safe graphics etc.) press F5 (or F6) for more options. make sure the first boot option is high lighted and then use the backspace key to remove "splash" from the boot line that appears after pressing the F5 or F6 sorry cant remember of the top of my head > then just press enter. be patient as it will look like nothing is happening. when you get the error message just say "no" then "OK". then you will be at the command prompt:
Type:

Nope I Guess it did not work because the only way that I have to connect to the internet is wireless 802.g connection so I can't download the driver with the apt-get the only thing I get is a error message.

I have the same problem. After starting the Live-CD, the screen gets black. No reaction (ctrl+alt+F1; etc...)

I tried also the verbose mode and just before starting of the x-server i switched to tty1 (ctrl+F1) but then, it crashes even there, just black screen.
I have no chance to reach the console toe dit the xorg.conf to change to vesa...

I have ubuntu 6.01 running on this machine and I' ll now give mint a try...
To install ubuntu I used always the alternate-CD...